


Falling Apart

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [5]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Clone!Jack isn't really underage, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7053385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, Any, <i>Once upon a time I was falling in love / Now I’m only falling apart</i>."</p><p>Sara O'Neill notices her new, young neighbor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Apart

She'd seen him hanging around her neighborhood for weeks and been haunted by him, because he looked so much like Jack, looked like Charlie would have looked at the same age (even though Jack always swore Charlie looked like her, she'd thought she knew Charlie would be just like his father one day). When she asked around to some of the other neighbors, they said he was an orphan, had been emancipated at fifteen, tried high school and hated it, got his GED, and now he worked at a garage across town. Given that Sara often saw him in his garage with his legs sticking out from under the shell of some classic car, she believed them. For a kid who was, what, sixteen? Seventeen? He was quiet. Didn't seem to have many friends. Kept to himself. Was responsible, could be seen on weekends mowing his lawn or fixing things around the house.  
  
She watched him, and the more she watched him, the more he reminded her of Jack, the less he reminded her of Charlie. His name was JD, the neighbors said. He was a good kid. Quiet. Helpful. So when her car broke down one morning before work, she was beside herself with panic, because she couldn't miss this shift, had a big departmental meeting, and she didn't think twice about going over to his garage where he was puttering around with his tools and asking for help.  
  
The light that lit in his eyes when he looked at her made her pause, feel warm all over, because it had been a long time since any male had looked at her like that. But then he nodded, said, "Yeah, sure, you betcha," with that same Minnesota drawl as Jack, and her heart stopped. And then he was digging under the hood of her car with strong, competent hands, and her engine was turning over like it was supposed to, and she was effusive with her gratitude, and he was waving her off, and she went to work.  
  
She brought him a share of her dinner casserole in gratitude, and he invited her into his kitchen while they ate together. His house was scrupulously neat for a bachelor and a teenager, but impersonal. No pictures on the walls. No posters. Most of the furniture looked gently used, and she supposed an emancipated teen was on a pretty tight budget.  
  
But he didn't act like a teenager. He didn't fidget under her gaze, and he spoke to her calmly, competently, and he laughed about things no teenager should laugh about, like exasperating coworkers and the stupidity of politicians and fretting over retirement benefits, and when he laughed, he sounded so much like Jack.  
  
Sara knew she should stay away from him, but she couldn't. It was his fault, anyway. He started mowing her lawn for her, fixing random things around the house for her - not that she'd never been competent about keeping things up herself, but ever since her father passed, she ached whenever she reached into his toolbox. And she kept bringing him food in gratitude, and soon they were eating together every night, and she wasn't even surprised when he leaned in and kissed her.

She should have been horrified, because he was seventeen, and she was old enough to be his mother, but the kiss was like coming home, was all she'd missed, because she'd gotten over Jack, but she'd never stopped loving him.  
  
And then one day she called him Jack, and he didn't even flinch, just glanced over his shoulder and said, "What did you need?"  
  
She hadn't meant to call him that, hadn't told him a thing about her life before, about her ex-husband and her son, but the easy way with which he responded made her pause.  
  
And then she stepped closed to him, kissed him, and he turned away from the sink where he was doing the dishes, and he got soapy water in her hair but he kissed her back, and then she whispered, "We were great together, weren't we?" And he said, "The greatest," and she knew. Somehow, he was _Jack_.  
  
And everything was fine until Child Protective Services came knocking at her door, and there were police, and she was numb with shock as they handcuffed her and led her away, and he fought like a wildcat, and it took three police officers to take him down ("Who is this kid? Punk's got special ops moves or something!"), and everything fell apart.  
  
He came to visit her at the jail.  
  
"You can't be here," she said. "You shouldn't be here. The judge issued a no-contact order. My public defender says -"  
  
He met her gaze, held it. "Do you want this?"  
  
"I don't know. I - you're just a kid."  
  
"Sara," he said, "if I could guarantee you a place they'd never find us, a place to start over, would you say yes?"  
  
And she began to cry, because Jack O'Neill had broken her heart so many times, and she didn't know what to do.  
  
"Think about it," he said. "You have seventy-two hours. Someone will come by for an answer." And he was gone.  
  
Her public defender screamed at her, but she made her decision, and when a bespectacled, blue-eyed man named Daniel Jackson came to visit her, asked her if she had an answer, she said yes, and she was taken away in a beam of light.


End file.
